Literary Analysis Second Draft About thirty million people in the United States suffer from an eating disorder, so what is it like to feel that way and how does their family feel while trying to help? In Skinny by Ibi Kaslik, Giselle is a college student who sufferes from anorexia nervosa while her sister, Holly, is a high school student athlete that is attempting to juggle school, track, and helping her sister recover without a relapse. Ibi Kaslik uses dual protagonists in Skinny to portray the ways that eating disorders affect both the people who suffer and those who try to help. By using dual protagonists, we can see what two different people are thinking about in the same situation. When Giselle gets to go home at the beginning of of …show more content…
Towards the end of the book, we see how concerned Holly is for her sister. “See, all I want for my sister, Giselle Vasco, to get better and be a doctor or do whatever it is she wants. I just feel like no one in this house can live their lives until she gets better” (Kaslik 219). Holly not only shows concern for her sister, but she also states how she feels that Giselles failing recovery is giving a harsh affect on all three of them in the house. Next, we see Giselles point of view on this situation and what response she sees her family giving to her while she's in the hospital again. “She hands me an apple and three more cookies. I look at her despairingly. Feeling sorry for me, she cuts up the apple and we share it” (Kaslik 216). Giselle knows that her sister feels sorry for her, but it is not helping her recovery because it is making her feel more guilty and doesn't want her sister to feel the need to help her. Both Giselle and Holly are under a large amount of pressure over the same thing, but the reason is different for both of them and Giselle doesn't want her sister to feel the need to worry about
The idea of an emaciated body has strictly been found to be a modern phenomenon, with its first occurrences coming from 1963 when George Balanchine began to mold his company’s dancers to fit his “ideal” ballet body type. This included the look of long legs, flat chested, and having an overall skinny appearance of the girl. These conditions have carried throughout the years and have driven multitudes of ballet dancers to force themselves to the point of heavy dieting, starvation, and forced vomiting to try and fit these attributes. These overlying characteristics of eating disorders have been found in adolescent girls even if they were not involved in ballet. Studies have shown, however, that there is a increase of eating disorders within girls who do participate in the art form.
The protagonists in
In America, most anorexia patients starve themselves due to obsession of being skinny, fear of being fat, or because “everyone else does it.” Dr. Lee was highly focused on finding out why this was and was trying to figure out why it was unique to his area. On November 24, 1994 one of Dr. Lee’s patients, Charlene Hsu Chi-Yang, died in public due to complications from anorexia. This event sparked what would be a disaster to Dr. Lee’s progress in dealing with anorexia. Journalists and reporters paralleled this event to events that happened in America, which is exactly the opposite of what Dr. Lee needed to continue progress in his care and research.
On the other hand in The Fat Girl, Louise constantly fights an internal battle with herself with conflicted feelings between her love for food and her confidence due to society’s growing repugnance towards people who are overweight. Even though both stories end differently due to both protagonists’ acceptance towards their secrets, the characters are baffled throughout the course of their respective novel and
After this, the winner of the Miss America pageant comes to visit their high school on a tour, and this upsets Ashley. While the girls were hanging out at school that day, Ashley makes fun of the winner, who is hard of hearing, by imitating a deaf voice, and Gurba describes that as “Ashley’s cruelty [giving her] goosebumps” (42) Gurba continuously chooses to surround herself with girls who don’t have the best reputations, as she hung out with “hos” in middle school, and describes her friends now in high school as “ not all [being] hos. Some were drunks and fools” (42). Gurba finds comfort in these nontraditional girls and their meanness.
When seeing the title “The Fat Girl” by Andre Dubus, I assumed it to be another story about a fat girl who would be depressed and insecure about her size. However, as I started reading, I learned that Louise, the fat girl, was not ashamed of herself and I became interested because my assumption was wrong. All the conflict about her size came from her mother and other relatives or friends. The title itself tells what the entire story is about. The entire story is about the life of “the fat girl”.
Deenie, the main character in “Thin”, is obsessed with not gaining any weight. After her dad left her mom for a thin woman. This causes her to be obsessed with her weight and go to extreme measures to stay away from her fear of gaining weight. "Sold" by Patricia McCormick and “Thin” by Joan Bauer use the social issue of body shaming to show the true face of society or the expectations and stereotypes set for women.
Anorexia applied to every little aspect in her life, which is where it differs from anorexics who are only worried about food. She found herself counting every calorie that came near her body and digging through encyclopedias for every element in her food. Her new coming skinniness didn’t come from her sister’s nickname of “Sister Infinity Fats” that even her parents joined in on, it merely formed on something Jenny considered a hobby. But her “hobby” became more than that after a while, thinking she would be “condemned to hell” for taking up so much room and felt guilty for eating. As Jenny neared college she desperately filled her schedule with every activity she could fit into her schedule from French club to drama club.
Uncovering Deeper Meaning in Andre Dubus’ “The Fat Girl” In the critical period of forming her identity, Louise battles with her obesity. Criticism from her family and friends cause her to question her body image and consequently, her self worth. Louise is not the only adolescent to struggle with her appearance; with his depiction of her transformation, Andre Dubus addresses those whose view of themselves is marred by society. After years of her weight and emotions fluctuating, Louise realizes a deeper change. Through Louise’s journey, Dubus communicates that the power to change oneself emanates from one’s self control and ability to surpass societal pressure.
After that she started to be a nicer, more mature sister and she started to care about more than just herself because when she was walking home from school Holling pushed her out of the way from a bus that was about to hit her and then the bus hit him instead of it hitting her. And she said “Holling you saved my life.” and when she was with her family at her dad banquet they had flowers on their shirts to show that they were the perfect family so she took her flower and flushed it down the toilet and said to Holling “ down the toilet.” Because she didn 't to be part of the perfect family.
In Andre Dubus’, “The Fat Girl”, Louise decides to stop dieting when she finally accepts herself. In Louise’s first step of accepting herself, she recognizes that her husband’s flaws are greater than hers. Louise’s husband, Richard is a shallow and vapid character who only cares about materialistic and vain things like boats. When Louise gains weight he is unaccepting and callous towards Louise. This becomes evident when Louise says, “I never knew how cruel you were” (170).
Sammy seems to be overly worried about this woman who is so called “chunky,” or “fat.” He seems to be an unhappy person, who feels the need to put others down to make himself feel better. Furthermore, Sammy uses informal words and sentences that are
“Critical Analysis Outline of Staying Fat for Sarah Brynes” We all have personal traits, but some affect people differently. Each person plays apart in the book Staying Fat for Sarah Brynes, but the three characters I chose stand out to me. They all have different personal traits that affect the story. Sarah Brynes is extremely courageous, Mr. Byrnes is psychotic, Eric is very caring.
Robert Haas’ “A Story About the Body,” perfectly illustrates the shallowness that some people have and Haas is able to embody shallowness inside a single bowl filled with something beautiful and something repulsive; after all, those two things cannot be found without each other. The story starts off with Haas
In the poem, When The Fat Girl Gets Skinny, by Blythe Baird, the poet addresses the issue of social ideology and how these trends affect young women. Told in a first perspective point of view, the poet supports her theme by describing how teenagers are being affected, establishing a social conflict of false need to achieve trends by identifying motifs for teenager’s actions, incorporating the use of life experiences from the past to the present tense and finalizing with a shift to highlight positivity in change of habit. Baird’s purpose is to illustrate a major conflict among young women who are being affected by social idolization of being skinny. She creates a mood of hopeful in order to inspire young teenagers who are currently harming